Friday, December 10, 2010

A Third of the Way to the Sun

This morning I left for a meeting as the solar panel crew was arriving to start work. When I  got home a few hours later, the support rails had already been installed on the barn roof.
The first two solar panels were being mounted!
Currently, there are two trees that cast shadows across the  PV panels. They are scheduled to be removed next Monday. Then the roof will have 100% clear solar exposure.
The back side of a photovoltaic  panel - looks pretty simple! The panels are  surprisingly light and the entire installation will add much less weight to the barn roof than a snowfall would.
The first twelve (of 36) panels were successfully installed!  They just need a few more hours to complete the installation, but we are forecast to get a huge snowstorm tonight, with up to 20 inches of snow followed by bitter cold. Curt spread tarps over the rails so  they don't have to chisel ice out of them to attach the panels.

Looks like the PV panels will scarcely be noticeable on the metal roof!

4 comments:

Marie said...

this is so cool ...

Mama Pea said...

Will you have a problem with snow accumulating on the panels and have to remove it by hand?

Susan said...

Ordinarily, snow melts and slides off this south-facing roof very fast. The PV panels are much darker and smoother than the roof, so hopefully we'll lose the snow even faster.

Anonymous said...

So cool you're doing this. We just got the o.k. to turn our new 4k (18 panel) system on last week. We won't be anywhere near self-sustaining, but every little bit helps.
wendy